


Flying Home

by betts



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Airports, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/M, Fluff, Kid Fic, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 10:40:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16973049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betts/pseuds/betts
Summary: While flying home for winter break, Bellamy meets a totally overwhelmed young mother with an infant, and offers to lend a hand.





	Flying Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KissTheWind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KissTheWind/gifts).



> For the prompt: holiday travel airport meet-cute, maybe?

O’Hare is hell on earth. Bellamy finds himself here a couple times a year when he comes home from school, Houston to Dayton, Dayton to Houston. Summer and winter. Back and forth. But this is his last year, and he doesn’t know where life is going to take him after he graduates. This past semester chewed him up and spit him out, and all he can really do is stare at the geometric carpet patterns of gate F26 at the dead end of the runway and hallucinate a DARS report full of Bs. A couple A-minuses if his professors took pity on him. 

The only thing he likes about his layover in Chicago is waiting at the Dayton gate, which is always empty and always filled with Dayton people, who look so much different than other people. Simpler, somehow. Confused, like they don’t know why they’re here, and a little put-off, like any place that’s not Dayton is not a place worth being. They’re all wearing trucker hats and Carhartts, or reading hardback library romance novels. One guy is shouting out UD Flyers scores periodically and the whole gate cheers each time. Bellamy can tell, can feel it deep in his bones, that not a single person at the gate is someone going to Dayton who was not born and raised there. Dayton isn’t a place to go, it’s just home. 

Outside it’s cloudy and snowing. The flight has been delayed by a half-hour but he doesn’t care. He lives across the street from the airport, so he’ll call Octavia when he lands, and she’ll be waiting out front by the time he reaches the doors. A few seats down, a shrill cry breaks him from his 3.0-GPA-induced despair. A baby, not even a year old, has woken up and is  _not_ happy about it. The woman holding it is alone, bouncing and shushing it over her shoulder. She has wavy blonde hair cut in a bob at her chin. She looks tired. More importantly, she doesn’t look very Dayton-y, and he wonders if she’s at the wrong gate, or maybe has a long layover and wants to sit down in a place that’s less populated.

When it's apparent the baby isn't planning to stop screaming any time soon, the mom stands and shoulders her diaper bag. “Excuse me?”

He looks up. Her eyes are very blue, and he can’t help but notice that she’s drop-dead gorgeous. Definitely not from Dayton, then.

“Can you watch my bag for me?” she asks. Ironically at that very moment, a recording comes over the speaker and says, “Do not leave bags unattended.”

“Sure,” he says with a little nod, confused, because there's a little old lady across from where the mom was sitting, and he’s a big, scary-looking dude in a leather jacket.

Bellamy takes it very seriously, the trust this woman has placed in him to watch her bag. He stares at it intently like it might roll away. He’s grateful for the distraction; it keeps him from thinking about how he bombed his advanced research methods final. 

The mom returns a couple minutes later with a quiet baby over her shoulder. “Thanks,” she says as she steps over his legs. 

“No problem.” When she settles back into her seat, he asks, “How old?”

“Eight months.” 

“Very new,” he says, stupidly.

She only laughs. “So new.” She sets the baby up on her knee, facing Bellamy. “Can you wave? Wave hi.”

Bellamy waves at the baby, who is looking at him with giant eyes the color of shiny quarters. A yellow pacifier is dangling out of her mouth. She’s wearing a onesie that looks like a teddy bear, little round ears on her hood. 

“She doesn’t want to wave,” the mom says. “She’s tired.”

“Travel days are rough.”

“You’re telling me.”

They fall silent. The guy a few rows ahead shouts out the UD score and everyone cheers again. The mom holds her baby in her lap and looks out the window at the swirling snow. While she’s looking away, Bellamy watches her in turn, the line of her neck, flush high on her cheeks. It’s always too hot on this side of O’Hare in winter; too cold in summer. 

Eventually the plane arrives, and they watch it taxi to the terminal. It’s an old, dilapidated-looking puddle-jumper with only three seats to a row. “Finally,” Bellamy says.

“No kidding,” the woman replies, the easy camaraderie of domestic flying, us-against-them.

Half an hour later, they call women with infants and children to board first, and the mom has trouble getting the diaper bag over her shoulder while holding the baby and wheeling her luggage at the same time, so Bellamy gets up to help, places the diaper bag more firmly on her shoulder, lifts the handle of the suitcase.

“Thank you,” she says, seems like she means it sincerely, and walks away.

When they call zone three, Bellamy lets about a dozen people in front of him, because he only has a backpack so he doesn’t need the overhead room, not that the flight will be full anyway. It never is. He’s one of the last to board the plane, and finds himself in row 20, seat A, which happens to be inhabited by the mom and her baby. 

He smiles at her and points. “That’s my seat.”

“Oh,” the woman says, and moves to unbuckle her seat belt.

“It’s fine, I’ll take the aisle.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” He sits down and shoves his backpack under the seat, buckles himself in. 

“I’m sorry I’m so scattered,” the woman says. “I hate flying, and I’ve never flown with her before, and it’s just.” She takes a deep breath. “It’s been a day.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.”

“You say that now. Wait until we get in the air.”

“I’m used to screaming babies.”

She gives him a look.

“I have a little sister. Well, she’s not little anymore but. She used to be.”

The woman offers him a small smile. “I’m Clarke, by the way.”

“Bellamy.”

The flight attendant clips by to check their seat belts. He kicks the strap of Bellamy’s bag further under the seat. When he walks away, Bellamy asks, “So what are you doing in Dayton?”

“That’s kind of a loaded question.” She glances out the window, makes a little huffing noise. “I live there. Well, I will. I guess.”

“You guess?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Oh.” He wants to inquire further, but it's not polite, or so his mom's voice in his head tells him.

“You?”

“Going home for break.”

“You’re in school?”

“Houston, yeah. I graduate in spring.” He doesn’t know why he says that last part. 

“Congratulations. What’s your major?”

“I started in business, then econ, and now I’ve made my way to classics.”

Her eyebrows raise. “I would ask ‘what are you planning to do with that’ but that’s probably a question you don’t like hearing.”

“You’re right about that.” 

The plane is sweltering. Clarke’s hair is sticking to her temples, and her whole face is red, so he reaches up and twists on the overhead fan. “Better?”

“Yeah, thank you.”

“What do you do? Besides mom-ing, I mean.”

“Also kind of a loaded question. I’m between things right now. I do administrative stuff a lot, temp work. Most recently I was a bank teller. A barista before that.”

“Jane of all trades.”

“You could say that.”

The plane lurches forward. Clarke gasps, and Bellamy has to force himself not to reach out to her. The pilot gives them the whole spiel, then the flight attendants go through all the safety stuff. Clarke watches like she’s going to have to take a test on it later. The plane turns onto the runway and the engines rev up. Clarke has gone pale now, eyes wide as she stares out the window.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Then the baby starts crying. Clarke turns as far away from him as she can, like she’s embarrassed. She’s shushing the baby, bouncing her. The plane rolls faster and faster. Clarke is shaking. 

Bellamy tries to mind his own business. He really tries. But he can’t help it. “Why don’t I take her and you focus on you for a minute.”

“No, it’s fine, it’s —”

“I’m great with kids, I promise.” 

“Okay,” she says, and passes the baby over. Bellamy takes her and puts her over his shoulder, surprised at himself, how easy it still is, like muscle memory. The baby nuzzles against his jacket and falls quiet. Bellamy holds out his free hand to Clarke, palm up. She looks at him briefly and takes it, drags it to her lap and squeezes it tightly. Her hand is soft and small and strong. The baby starts to cry again as the plane tilts up and ascends. They’re lucky they’re at the back of the plane and several seats around them are empty. Everyone else has headphones in. It’s a short flight, just an hour and a half, probably less since they’re hauling ass to make up for the delay. 

Even when they’ve reached their highest altitude, Clarke doesn’t let go of his hand or ask for her baby back. In fact she lets out a relieved breath and closes her eyes, rests her head against the back of the seat.

The baby cries and cries, but eventually wears herself out. After a half hour or so, he glances over to see Clarke dead asleep. Her hand slips out of his, and he uses the opportunity to gently shift the baby to his other shoulder and get more comfortable. 

When the pilot comes on the intercom to let them know they’re making their final descent, Clarke jolts awake. 

“Oh my god,” she says, grabbing for her baby. He passes her over. “I’m so sorry. Oh my god, I’m the worst mother. I can’t believe I —”

“It’s okay,” he says. “We had a good time.”

“This is so embarrassing.” She reaches down to her diaper bag and adds, “Do you — I don’t know, want money? Or something? God this is a nightmare.”

“It’s really okay.” He wants to ask for her number, but it feels like a weird time to make a pass. And anyway, the baby implies there’s a good chance a partner is in the picture. Then again, she’s not wearing a ring, either. She's one big, beautiful mystery.

She gives up on whatever she was looking for in the bag. Glances out the window. Goes silent and still. The baby sighs and shifts around in her arms. 

“I’m —” Clarke begins. “I don’t really know anyone in Dayton except for my dad. He works at the base. Do you know where that is?”

“Wright-Patt? Everyone knows where that is.”

“Are you near there?”

His heart beats a little faster. “Couple towns over, but yeah.”

“Would you maybe —” She halts. Adjusts the binky clip on the baby’s onesie. “Would you want to get coffee maybe?”

Before he can even answer, she says, “I know that’s presumptuous of me, and I’m a single mom with a kid, and my life is a total mess, and it’s the holidays so you’re probably busy —”

“I’d love to,” he says. 

“Really?” she asks, like she doesn’t believe him.

“While you were asleep I was figuring out how to ask you if you were single that didn’t make me sound like a creep.”

“Oh thank god.” She hands him her phone and he puts his number in it. 

“Just text me whenever. I don’t have a lot going on.” When he’s done, he gives it back to her and adds, “Not gonna lie, I’m super curious about the whole ‘loaded questions’ thing. People from Dayton aren’t that interesting.”

“I’m curious how a business student switches all the way to classics.”

The plane lands with a jerk, and she reaches out to take his hand again. He lets her squeeze it until his fingertips turn purple, until the inertia of braking starts to abate, and she lets go. 

He takes the diaper bag and pulls her suitcase down from the overhead bin, walks out behind her with her belongings so she only has to worry about the baby, through the gate and down the escalator. He shoots a quick text to Octavia to let her know she can come get him. 

“This is the smallest airport I’ve ever been in,” Clarke says.

“Welcome to Dayton, the pit stop between Cincinnati and Columbus.”

Her dad is waiting for her by the TSA checkpoint and she squeals when she sees him, gives him a one-armed hug hello, and the baby starts crying again. 

“Dad, this is Bellamy,” Clarke says. “Bellamy this is my dad, Jake. He took care of Madi on the plane.”

“Already making friends,” Jake says. “I knew you’d get along just fine here.”

Jake holds out his hand to shake. Bellamy takes it. He gets a feeling like dropping a rock into a well, a resonant echo, that some major shift in his life has just happened, that Clarke and Madi and Jake are going to be in his life for a long time. He can see it stretch out before him, can see it all unfold —

(And in fact, it goes like this:

He gets home, hugs his mom, listens to Octavia whine about high school and all the petty drama in her life as if she doesn't call and text him almost daily anyway. He settles in quickly, tries to hide his eagerness, and then Clarke texts him — "Made it home safe!!" with a smiley face — and he stares at it wondering how exactly to reply, decides on "how's madi holding up?" and they go from there, back and forth through the evening and into night. At dinner Aurora asks him who he's texting, and he says Miller, but Octavia says, "He's lying," and he doesn't know how she knows that, so he tells them all about the girl he met at the airport.

He invites Clarke out to coffee, the Starbucks by the base. She gets a peppermint mocha and he gets plain black coffee. He tells her this is where Dave Chappelle hangs out sometimes. He asks where Madi is and she says with Jake, and their conversation moves easily. Some of the mystery is lifted: her parents are divorced. She's from Chicago. She's coming to Dayton to get away from her abusive ex, Madi's dad, and something fierce and protective rears up in Bellamy, and he knows for his part this whole endeavor is going to be easy, but it won't for her, and he knows too he's willing to be patient, that he has to step carefully. He wants to ask her to share more, but she changes the subject back to him, and he tells her about his trajectory from business to econ to criminal justice to history to classics, and that he's in his fifth and final year, a super senior, and no, he doesn't know what to do when he graduates. 

They end up at the Barnes & Noble down the way, walking through the aisles, talking here and there as Clarke runs her finger down the spines of books and tells him she used to enjoy reading but never finds the time anymore. They get hungry and decide on Flying Pizza, which was maybe a bad call because it's New York style and not Chicago, and Clarke has Opinions on that. She says she has to go home afterward, so he drops her off at her house, a huge place in a nice part of town with Christmas lights strung up on the gutters. It's snowing, the good kind of snow, thick clumps that melt in your hair. He walks her to her door, says, "Can I kiss you?"

She nods and smiles, and he leans down, cups her face in his palm, and brushes their lips together. Her nose is cold against his cheek. When he pulls away, her eyes are still closed, and she looks happy, and even if nothing comes of this, he's glad to have given her that. 

When he gets home, he checks the text she sent him while he was driving — Jake asleep on the couch, Madi asleep on his chest. 

Madi is with them the second time. It's warmer out, sunny, so they go for a walk around the neighborhood, Madi asleep in her stroller, little face poking out of her puffy pink coat and beanie. She's wearing mittens with little paw prints on them. Her nose and cheeks are pink. They sit down on a park bench in the woods and he puts his arm around Clarke's shoulders, tilts her chin toward him. She kisses him first, and this time it's longer, deeper. Their breath rises in clouds around their lips. On their walk back home, she tells him it feels too soon after Finn, that she's still working everything out for herself, and he says he understands, he has to go back to Houston anyway next month. 

She comes over to his house on Christmas Eve; her dad has to work late on something. She meets Aurora and Octavia and they have a big dinner together. Octavia falls head over heels for Madi. While the two of them play in the living room, Bellamy takes Clarke to his bedroom, and they sit on the bed and talk. She tells him in a roundabout way she wants another kid some day, and that she wants to get married, and she and Madi are a package deal for "whoever comes next." He says in a similarly roundabout way that "whoever comes next" will be the luckiest person in the world, and that he wants all the same things she does. She admits as if it's shameful that she doesn't have particularly high life aspirations, just to raise Madi to be the kindest and gentlest person she can be. Bellamy says that family has always been his highest priority. They kiss, and kiss some more, until Aurora interrupts with a terse knock to say, for no reason, she's going to bed. Then she leaves the door open like they're still teenagers, even though Clarke already has a kid.

They spend Christmas morning with their respective families, but go out for a movie in the afternoon. They make out through the whole thing. She brings his hand between her legs and he rubs her over her leggings, loves the sighs she makes into his mouth. 

On New Year's, they have Jake's house to themselves. He's at a work party, and Madi has been put to bed. Clarke takes Bellamy to her bedroom, where they kiss and undress each other, and she turns off the light and hides under the covers, self-conscious of her body, says it didn't used to look this way, with the stretch marks on her breasts, pouch of fat on her stomach. He tells her she's beautiful, thinks maybe she believes it when he crawls between her legs and puts his mouth on her. She's the sweetest he's ever had. After, she tells him she's not ready to have sex yet, and he's fine with that, fine with whatever she wants. She didn't think this would happen again so quick, she says, and doesn't need to explain what "this" is. He knows. He tells her he's not in any kind of hurry. 

When it comes time for him to fly back to Houston, Clarke takes him to the airport, parks and walks him inside, all the way to the TSA line, holding his hand. She starts to tear up when it's time to say goodbye. "Sorry," she says, embarrassed, wiping her eyes with the flat of her hand. "I didn't know it would be like this."

"I'll be back in June."

"And then what?"

He kisses her lightly. "Whatever we want."

While he's away, they talk almost every night on the phone. In April, Jake gets her a job at the base, part-time administrative work. Bellamy packs up and leaves an hour after his last final. Madi, Clarke, and Octavia are all waiting for him at the airport when he arrives home, and he hugs Clarke so hard he lifts her off her feet. That's it for him, he thinks. He never has to leave Dayton again if he doesn't want. 

Bellamy gets a construction job that pays well and that he doesn't hate. Clarke moves to full-time at the base. They get an apartment together, and a year later, married. A year after that, another baby. And two years after that, a third. They buy a house near Jake's and settle in for the long haul. Bellamy didn't know life could be like this, that love could be so easy.)

— It seems absurd as it crosses his mind, their whole life, yet he’s certain of it. Clarke clicks into place in his heart already, as if she’d always been there and he just hadn’t met her yet, and he knows, would bet his entire GPA on it, that she can feel it too. 

They chat for a bit until Octavia texts to say she’s arrived. Clarke reaches up on her toes and kisses him on the cheek, promises to text as soon as she gets settled in at home. As he heads out the doors, he waves goodbye, knowing it won’t be goodbye for long, and Madi waves back.  


End file.
